A blog for Small Business Consultants and the vendors who serve them. It contains Opinions on business success, News in the SMB consulting space, and Information on what I'm up to.All material Copyright (c) 2006-2020 by Karl W. Palachuk unless otherwise noted.

Sunday, December 30, 2007

In the world of technical consulting, there are two sides of the office: Those who deliver technical solutions and those who figure out where the business is going and how to get there.

Michael Gerber (The E-Myth Revisited) labels these as "working in the business" vs. "working on the business."

In the smallest I.T. consulting firms, these are the same people. In a one person shop, the owner simply does everything. But with just a little growth, the division emerges quickly.

I believe both sides of the office need to read material directed to both sides. Technicians need to understand the business side of business. And owners and strategists need to keep connected with the technology.

To that end, let me recommend two blogs that are absolute must-read material for both sides of the office.

Susan's blog is filled with no-apologies technical stuff about 80% of the time (and no apologies other stuff the other 20%). It really is must-read material. Many consultants in the small biz space go to Susan's blog first when they're looking for a solution. A quick search brings up only the information related to this space. After that you can check out technet.

You may not agree with everything he says, or the way it's presented, but for an analysis of the business you're in, Vladville is the smartest blog on the internet. Just look over his posts for the last week! In fact, this entire post was inspired by his article on Arthur Miller and the Death of an SMB Tech Salesman.

My complete reaction to that post this morning was "Damn this is good. Thank God someone's thinking about this stuff."

I suspect that these two blogs are particularly useful because neither author is exactly in our space. Neither of them is a consultant with a shop on the corner. Both of them interact with SMB consultants and clients all the time. So they get to see us in a little different light.

I read about ten blogs consistently and check out another half dozen from time to time. No one can keep up with everything, and I'm sure I'm missing some great stuff. But to keep the two sides of my brain tuned up at all times, I keep up on Susan and Vlad.

Saturday, December 29, 2007

Lana -- our most excellent Commander of Shipping -- has declared a sale!

We have tallied up the damaged goods.

We got all of our books back from various distributors.

A few of the damaged books have a hole drilled in them so they can be bolted to a table (or something like that). Others have "Demo" written across the front cover. A few are merely scuffed from shipping to and fro.

All books are 100% usable. Insides are good. All include their CDs.

These are a spectacular deal right now, while supplies last.

The last time we did this, it lasted only four days. Here's what we have:

Saturday, December 22, 2007

In that exercise you ran a standard QuickBooks profit and loss statement and had lots of fun.

You also built an excel spreadsheet so you can track expenses month after month, year after year.

And now, at last, you know whether you make money in your business. I hope it's good news.

Now we're going to run some tasty reports so you can see more of the details of what your business does.

1. Largest Months

Let's start with Monthly Sales.

Remember that sales are not profit.

Create a report every month that lists the twelve largest months' sales in the company's history. Update this every month once you've settled the previous month's finances. Sort the list from highest sales to lowest. This is very simple. For Example:

As you can see, these are not simply the last twelve months in reverse chronological order. You've got a few real oldies there. With luck, most of these are from the previous year. But reality it what it is.

2. Most Profitable Months

Next we'll look at the juicy stuff. If you created the excel spreadsheet from the previous post, then you have "the bottom line" at your fingertips. That is, you can give the final profit (or loss) for each month.

Note, please, that the largest sales months are not the same as the most profitable months.

If you want to distribute this to your staff, you don't have to give specific dollar amounts. But you should keep track of this.

Make a habit of listening to the financial news networks. You'll notice over time that the most desirable companies make more profit every quarter and pay a higher dividend each quarter.

Try to emulate this.

Focus on the profit and you'll be more profitable.

Focus on the bottom line and you'll improve the bottom line.

3. The Largest Customers

Finally, create a report of the largest clients you have.

We're often deceived because the loudest, neediest clients trick us into believing that they are our most important clients. And we confuse that with profit.

Here's a report that will open your eyes every time your run it. It has two parts.

First, list the ten largest clients based on sales for the last twelve months. List the percent of total sales for each client. Because you list percentages and not dollar amounts, this is a report you can distribute to your employees.

Note that the order of clients for the last three months is not the same as for the last twelve months. There are a couple of reasons for this.

First, any client can be in the top 5 at any time. The quarter your smallest client buys a new server and five office license, they can spend $10,000 and shoot to the top. The 12-month figures change more slowly. If you were to lose your largest client (gasp), it would take 1-2 months for them to disappear from the stop spot. And it might take 10 months for them to drop off the top ten list!

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At first, these numbers might not make a great deal of sense. But if you run these numbers every month, you can't help but look at them. Among the gems, you are likely to find:

- There are clients who move onto and off of the "largest client" list.

- There are clients who stay on this list for years.

- There are "sleeper" clients that no one on your staff can guess. But there they are, quietly contributing to the bottom line while other clients bluster away but don't contribute much.

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An inconvenient truth:

Most sole proprietors could drop every single client outside of their top ten and see only a microscopic change in revenue. They would also see a noticable decrease in expenses. In other words, they'd make more profit.

The world doesn't care whether you like finances or avoid finances. If you don't keep track of it, you don't know whether your busines is moving in the right direction. Are you making more money than last year, or less? How does your year look month to month to month?

If you know and use QuickBooks, I hope you'll find an idea or two here. If you don't know QB, start today. A few tips:

First, work with an accountant or enrolled agent. Pay them to help you set up the right accounts and items that make sense for your business.

Second, Plan to go over this every month. If possible, meet with your accountant or enrolled agent every few months to make sure you're on the right track.

This is a tool: use it and it will help you!!!

More comments to follow. For now, look through the elements you'll find on most consultants' spreadsheets:

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Create an Excel Spreadsheet. Here's your first column. It should be followed by columns for each month of the year.

That means you enter the information from QuickBooks into Excel. That way you can create charts, graphs, etc.

At the far right, add up the totals for the year for each row.

If you have an item that is just microscopic, drop it. For example, I have an entry in QB called Tools. But tools (screwdrivers, pocket knives) is such a tiny percentage of the total that I don't put it on the excel spreadsheet. It goes in the "other" category. Similarly, if something grows to the point where it does represent a significant percent of the total, you should add it to the spreadsheet.

I've added some subtotal categories for Cost of Goods and the related sales of goods. This allows me to break down the big categories into:

- Revenue from goods sold- Revenue from services sold

- Cost of goods sold- Cost of Labor

- Cost of everything else (Assuming hardware, software, and labor are all sold at a price higher than you pay, this is your real cost of operations -- the nut that has to be cracked every month).

This seems simplistic, but most consultants don't think about it until forced to:

You can make money on every single thing you sell and still lose money overall.

How? Let's say you make a profit of $1,000 on hardware, software, and materials. And you make a profit of $2,000 on labor. Rent is 1,500. and all other expenses are $2,000. You just lost $500. Do that for twelve months and you've lost $6,000.

You can't just look at each job and make each job profitable.

-----Someone who does this for a living, like Susan, might argue with some specifics here and there. But the important message is very straight forward: pay attention to finances and the bottom line and you'll be more profitable in 2008!

Thursday, December 13, 2007

I can't spill the details, but I am reading through some materials in a court case for a large client. The questions put to me are about the standards in the industry. In particular, what are the professional standards in our industry?

Maybe it's a coincidence that they chose me to talk about this. But it turns out to be one of my pet peeves (oh, you hadn't guessed?).

There are layers of competence.

The classic layers are:

Unconscious Incompetence - (you don't even know what you don't know)

Conscious Incompetence - (you are aware of what you don't know)

Consciously Competent - (you know what you know and what you don't know)

Unconsciously Competent - (you know this so well you can do it in your sleep)

I'm not sure where this originated. After I first read it, I looked for sources. I can find this discussion a lot, but not sure who to credit with the original formulation.

Anyway, there are obviously many steps missing in that process. Here are some that are relevant to our business:

Safe Zone One: - Incompetent and not interested (with luck, this is a client!)

Beginner: - Competent enough to convince someone to hand you a check - Competent enough to fix the same problem twice - Competent enough to realize you need to know more

Early Professional: - Realize there are areas of competence and incompetence - Define areas of competence and capitalize on them - Begin to safely expand areas of competence (one job at a time)

Danger Zone Two: - Take on any job no matter the level of competence - Present yourself as an expert in areas you don't remotely understand - Actively deceive people about your abilities and facilities

Professional: - Completely aware of areas of competence and incompetence (focus on areas of competence) - Invest in moving up to the next level (books, training, conferences, pro groups, etc.) - Standardize procedures and take pride in doing things "the right way"

Seasoned Professional: - Only work in areas of competence - Gain competence where needed (and only sell once competent) - "Live" in a world where competence and high standards are simply assumed to be part of what you do

Danger Zone Three: - Very competent in some areas, but unethical in business practices - Actively deceive clients and non-clients (e.g., take money and don't deliver service) - Unwilling to admit areas of incompetence, and willing to accept money for any job

Note, please, that this is not a nice, linear progression. Somewhere along the line, people choose to be good (professional) or evil (danger zone). Unfortunately, you can't tell good and evil at a glance. That comes with experience over time.

Let's just look at the good (professional) track. Here your basic progression is

There's plenty of discussion about where the SMB community fits on some "competence scale." I often use the line that some technicians got into this business because they know more about computers than anyone they know. For most people, that's not very much knowledge. This danger zone isn't evil unless they choose to stay there.

The SMB space has more than it's share of Beginners and Early Professionals. That's the nature of the beast. After all:1) The barriers to entry are low2) As people move up the professional scale, they leave smaller (easier) jobs behind3) Beginners are willing to work for less and many SMB clients aren't willing to pay for competence and professionalism

The Really Good News is that professionalism in the SMB space has expanded dramatically in the last few years. With books by Harry Brelsford, Beatrice Mulzer, Janet Ruhl, Erick Simpson, Eriq Neale, and others, we actually talk about this stuff! Then you add the rantings of Vlad Mazek, Chris Rue, Jeff Middleton, Susan Bradley, and dozens of others. If you look at the SMB blogs, web sites, news groups, and boards, it's awesome how much we discuss professionalism and the right way of doing things.

So while we'll always be overloaded with Beginners and Early Professionals, our space is finally reaching the point where we are professionals. We have professional associations (ICCA, SMBTN, Mobi, IAMCP, ASCII, etc.). From time to time we even discuss licensing boards and the "next" step in professionalism.

From time to time I lament the fact that there's so much un-professionalism in our space. I need also to celebrate the fact that we have so much professionalism.

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Sometimes business is buiness. And sometimes friendship is friendship. And when we're lucky, we do business with people we like.

Today was a weird day. I did a bunch of things I don't normally do, didn't make any money, and had a great time.

It started with a great sales event at the local Microsoft office with Suzanne Lavine, the ultimate CPAM Goddess of of Microsoft. Tom and all the others wish they could do what Suzanne does.

That was interrupted by a call with Harry B, who was in more of a chatty mood than I was because I had to get back to the sales event.

Harry Agreed to let us distribute his current SMB Nation books through SMBbooks.com, and to let us distribute his new books as they are released over the next 6-8 months. Great news for us (and you).

So I apologized to Suzanne, who asks about SMB Nation. We side track everyone for awhile. That leads to a general discussion of attending events. Everyone agrees that networking opportunities are the greatest.

Someone asks whether I get any value from events like SMB Nation, SMBTN Summit, or SBS Migration.

And having just finished watching every minute of Rome, I slip into an oration.

Community events allow me to make contacts with people I rarely see. Real contacts. Sit down and share a meal contacts.

Truth be told, I can call Vlad Mazek, Jeff Middleton, Erick Simpson, or Amy Luby anytime. But I don't.

But one way or another I manage to connect with these fine people in person 1-2 times a year "in real life." And that means in real life at conferences or seminars.

I first met each of these people face to face at some seminar. There are many more people I only know because of communications via blogs or yahoo groups. Some people live in far-off continents. Some helped me when I needed something.

So I got into a meloncholy mood.

I checked my email. A smart-ass comment from a friend about a blog post.

It's great to be part of a community.

Then I scurried off to Macaroni Grill for the last SBS User Group "meeting" of the year. Twenty people showed up, including Suzanne. Raymond drove 1.5 hours to get here. I always appreciate that. We had a great meal, did a gift exchange. Thanks to Jonathan for organizing all of this.

The gift exchange was organized by Janet.

You may have seen Janet at SMB Nation even if you haven't met her personally. She's a fifth level vegan: She won't eat anything that castes a shadow. I sat next to Brad, one of my favorite people in the world.

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And when I wondered home, I'd spent seven hours with people in the SMB community, talking about people in the SMB community, about "stuff" in the SMB community.

And as Christmas approaches, I am truly grateful for the SMB community.

Talking to folks at dinner tonight was very much like a family reunion. Brad asked about the client where he'd helped me rewire 65 workstations in one day; Jonathan quietly accepted thanks for organizing everything; Bob sat at the head of the table and played the father figure; Mark played up his gag gift like a master; and Denny introduced his fiance with pride.

Jeff summed it up: As small businesses, we don't really have company Holiday parties. This is our Christmas party.

True enough.

My enjoyment of the evening really has nothing to do with business: It has to do with choosing to spend time with people I enjoy. I am eternally grateful to the community for being a community and for allowing me to participate.

As I retire for the night, I wish you all a wonderful holiday season and a spectacular new year.

Sunday, December 09, 2007

Disclaimer: As always, this is just my very biased opinion. Take what you like and leave the rest.

When I say "Tech support from India" most partners have an actual physical reaction. Their ears turn red. Their jaws clench. You can see that their blood pressure is going up. And immediately they start ranting about how horrible Microsoft's tech support is in India.

Now, truth be told, the support on the server 2003 and SQL lines is excellent. But since most SMB consultants get funneled to the SBS support line, they only get to talk to incompetent technicians. Once in awhile they find someone good. But unless their call is escalated, support pretty much sucks. As a result, the majority of their only experience with Indian tech support is with terrible tech support.

The only real overlap with Microsoft is when we call for higher-level support for a server.

[Note:Microsoft has patch management systems with SCE and MOM and WSUS, but we only rarely use these. For the SMB space, these add more labor than they remove. So that's why we don't discuss it in this comparison. Too labor intensive compared to the other tools.]

Second, Competence.

I know I sound like an old song here, but our experience is that we have plenty of high-level support in-house. We only call for additional support when we've had more than one over-certified, over-qualified technician come to a dead end. It happens.

So, when we call any tech support, we expect to talk to someone who knows more than we do about a product. That's true for firewalls, spam filters, accounting systems, servers, operating systems, etc. Everything. And when we get an intro-level tech whose only real job is to answer the phone and ask us to hold while he gets someone at the next level, we're very patient with that.

Our experience with Microsoft is that the first people who answer the phone on the SBS line are untrained, unprofessional, and incompetent. They are unwilling to escalate unless you raise a stink. They break things. They don't follow their own rules.

There are plenty of good technicians on the SBS support line, including the guys in India. But Microsoft has no effective triage system, and no effective escalation system. So you waste hours talking to someone what can't help and wants to go through the Internet Connection Wizard again and again.

Zenith is exactly the opposite. It didn't take very long at all before we realized that every single job we assigned to them got done quickly and competently. They don't just fix a problem and close a ticket: They give us details about how they did it, and they include KB article references.

Sometimes, we don't ask them to fix the problem, but just do the research so we can fix it. Again, always competent. Always professional.

One of the amazing things that we've experienced with Zenith is that we absolutely trust that they can just fix the problem.

Third, Price.

As a certified partner, we get a package of "free" incidents with Microsoft. In addition, "Server Down" calls are free. The result is that Microsoft has created their own nightmare. People who shouldn't be in this business, people who haven't done any research, and generally incompetent people call for help. They haven't read a book or even done one search on technet.

Those people are clogging the line when you (the competent technician) call Microsoft. So 90% of the calls can be solved with a recommendation to buy CALs or run the internet connection wizard.

It's "free" only in the sense that you pay with endless hours of your time.

Think of it this way: Whatever you charge by the hour, that's what you're really paying to sit on the phone with Microsoft. You're explaining SBS to someone who was trained on Server2003 instead of billing another client at $120/hr.

Zenith has a pretty basic free structure. It's about $37 per month to manage a server, and $37 per hour to provide labor. The monthly fee is a great bargain. The hourly rate is a bit high. But it's not horrible. Remember, your in-house tech collects a paycheck and doesn't provide income while she's in training, in meetings, at the water cooler, etc. So a $20/hr technician costs more like $30 with insurance, taxes, benefits, etc. and is not 100% billable. So maybe $37 as a contract rate is very reasonable.

Zenith asks you to put down a deposit and then chip away at it. This has worked very smoothly for us.

Microsoft does offer a high-end support option. It is about $6,500 and covers calls regarding one product. So you can get right through to the excellent tech support in Texas. It's a bit pricey

For $6,500 at Zenith I can get total support for ten servers for a year AND buy more than 50 hours of top-notch service.

Fourth, Privacy and Confidentiality.

This is very simple. Microsoft has no privacy policy regarding calls to PSS (CSS).

Zenith has a written privacy and non-disclosure policy regarding their access to your operations and procedures, and to your clients' data.

I asked my contact at PSS for their privacy policy and he sent me one related to using the Microsoft web site. When I pointed this out and asked what our privacy rights are regarding calls to PSS, his only response was

"I'd have to defer you to our legal department as I do not have that information."

When I asked how to get ahold of the legal department, all I got was the question

"Have you retained a lawyer?"

I've asked my PAM and the partner desk. No one (including PSS) can come up with a privacy policy for PSS calls.

Who cares? Well, we do, for one. Awhile back I irritated a few people with This Post. Someone, a contractor for Microsoft who actually helped identify himself, posted some very inappropriate things about my company and employees on the Internet, including specific notes from calls made to PSS.

But they have since made it very clear to me that they have no privacy policy regarding calls to PSS.

If you call Microsoft, you have no guarantees that the details of your call will not be used in any way that any Microsoft employee or contractor sees fit. This goes for your clients' data as well.

I did learn that employees and contractors need to sign non-disclosure agreements, but that didn't do us any good while the details of our PSS calls were posted on the Internet.

I sign non-disclosure agreements with all my clients. If Microsoft can post PSS call information on the Internet, then my client NDA is worthless. My NDA is only meaningful if I work with partners who have meaningful privacy policies in place.

With luck, the Microsoft Lawyers are banging away trying to produce a privacy policy for PSS calls. In the meantime . . .

Bottom Line

Our primary reason for signing up with Zenith was to solve the problem of dealing with the horrible tech support at Microsoft. We have put procedures in place that prevent them from breaking things, but these are imperfect. And we were will wasting hours and hours dealing with their "system" and not fixing problems.

Zenith has fixed our problems.

The most frustrating part about supporting SBS has simply gone away. We get excellent, competent, timely support. And we don't have to call the Microsoft SBS line in India.

Friday, December 07, 2007

Disclaimer: As always, this is just my very biased opinion. Take all the bits you like and leave the rest. :-)

In the last post I talked about our general experience with Zenith. The two natural comparisons that arise are:

1) How does Zenith compare to Kaseya?

2) How does Zenith compare to Microsoft?

Of course these are very different roles. So we'll do apples to apples and oranges to oranges.

First Z and K. Next time Z and M.

Zenith vs. Kaseya

The basic roles as we use them:
- Zenith provides remote monitoring of servers.
- Kaseya provides remote monitoring of servers and workstations.
- We use Kaseya for scripting specific jobs across multiple clients.
- Zenith does remote labor on client machines.
- Zenith does troubleshooting and will fix items once we authorize it.

Customer Service:
- Kaseya has eliminated free training. So it's sink or swim, or pay for learning to use their tool. This was not the case when we first signed up.
- Overall, Kaseya is one of the most arrogant vendors we've ever dealt with. They have a real "You need us more than we need you" attitude.
- Zenith provides free training, extensive documentation, as well as ample marketing material, sample contracts, etc.
- Zenith's customer service is excellent in every regard. Sometimes it is a bit slow to get a response by email, but then you get three responses at once because they always cc each other.

Pricing:
- We bought Kaseya licenses through the ASCII group (www.ascii.com), so we got a discount. Don't know what the current price is. Talk to your rep because pricing is based entirely on their mood and your attitude.
- Zenith is $37 per server per month, last I checked. I think it's about $7 per desktop per month.

Kaseya is not as expensive as you think.

Everyone phreaks out because someone paid $30,000 for 250 licenses.

OK. Think about that. That's $120/license. Over three years, that's still $120/license. So that's $3 per month per license.

Even if you paid $150 per license, that's less than $5 per month for the first three years.

And it gets cheaper after that because you're just paying for maintenance.

Kaseya is the most affordable remote monitoring, patch management, and remote support tool available.

Backend Support:
- Zenith built their business on having a backend support system.
- Kaseya has recently added this option.

Our bias, when we first bought Kaseya, was to buy the best. Kaseya was the best. Their product was complete while everyone else was playing catch-up. Now Kaseya is playing catch-up to Zenith on the back office feature.

Our future:
Who knows what the future holds, but right now we expect to turn over more jobs to Zenith.

We rely on Kaseya for remote monitoring and patch management because we own the server and control the entire process. We rely on Zenith for regular maintenance, solving interesting problems, and doing chores across a group of servers.

We put both Zenith and Kaseya on servers and Kaseya only the desktops. Why? Because the service we need on desktops is extremely basic, Kaseya does everything we need, and Kaseya's cheaper.

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Final analysis.

I sure hope you weren't looking to make a quick decision based on my observations.

This is obviously a mixed review.

If I could change one thing about Zenith it would be the price. But I can't really ask that because I see it as a service with people behind it. And that being the case, I don't know how they do it so cheaply.

If I could change one thing about Kaseya it would be their attitude. Their sales incentives encourage sales people to rip consultants off for thousands of licenses before they've signed a single service agreement. Support and customer service take this level of love and carry it along in everything they do.

The final analysis is this: Do both! Figure out how to make money using these tools, and use each to it's fullest advantage.

Why not?

Buy 100 licenses of Kaseya on payment terms. Go through ASCII or someone else to get the best price. Use it, use it, use it. Then slap down a deposit with Zenith and figure out all the things they can do to make your work go away. After you've got them both doing as much as they can, fine tune.

If we absolutely had to do one today? Tough call. It would be a long debate. But I think the nod would go to Zenith because of their proven ability to do the labor side. And that, ultimately, reduces our costs.

Thursday, December 06, 2007

Way back at SMB Nation East I had the pleasure of spending some time with both Arlin Sorensen and Erick Simpson. Here are three simple rules for life:

Thing one: If Arlin Sorensen gives you advice, take it.

Thing two: If Erick Simpson gives you advice, take it.

Thing three: If both Arlin and Erick give you the same advice, do it as quickly as you can.

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One of the business-changing decisions that came out of that conference was the decision to add Zenith Infotech to our managed services offering. Both Arlin and Erick use it. Arlin's company was in the same boat as us: using Kaseya but ready for more.

And, as I have publicly discussed my addition of this tool, it is only right that I give you a report on how it's going.

In a word: Awesome.

Please note: I'm a real fan of taking a tool and using for our purposes, whether that's what the vendor intends or not.

Here's what we've found with Zenith:

Excellent to work with. We have definite ideas about how we want things done. They are willing to do it our way and have never charged us extra for figuring out our procedures.

Humans are better than machines. Duh. Kaseya is a great product, but it can't quickly look through log files, run a network trace, research KB articles, and figure out what the problem is.

We have virtually eliminated daily monitoring. One of the key components of managed services is to monitor machines and make sure all the services are up, machines are not running out of disc space, etc.

Between Zenith and Kaseya, all of this is taken care of. If a monitor goes off, one of them will generate a service request. If something just isn't right (e.g., backup takes too long) Zenith will open a service request. The only thing we do now is to manually check the backup on two servers because those two clients do not want technicians other that us accessing their machines.

We have virtually eliminated "monthly maintenance." One of the core components of our business for the last 12+ years has been monthly maintenance. See The 68-point checklist. Once daily monitoring is done, much of the old monthly maintenance checklist is done. Now, Zenith handles all the pieces that take a human to do. The only thing left for us is to call each client and step through putting in the right tapes so we can verify the backup each month and send tapes to permanent offsite storage.

Special projects are a breeze. When we have a particularly difficult chore, we turn it over to Zenith. For example, if Symantec Anti-Virus is not working, won't uninstall to reinstall, and the job will be drawn out with a few reboots, we assign it to Zenith. They do the job over the weekend or at night.

When we just need more labor. Sometimes we get slammed. Handing a job off to Zenith means it just gets done. Our guys can work on something else.

Their reporting is excellent. Even when they just go in to fix a little problem, their tech notes say exactly what they did, which KB articles are relevant, and how they verified the fix.

We have three kinds of tasks we hand to Zenith:

1) Monitor

2) Troubleshoot (look but don't make changes)

3) Fix and repair

Where we draw the line on duties is not exactly where Zenith draws the line. Here's what I mean. From their perspective, actions that are "maintenance" of the system are included in the flat monthly fee. Actions that are above and beyond maintenance are billed to us at an hourly rate.

So, monitoring is always included. Some troubleshooting is included. Some fix and repair is included.

We manage our budget by making sure we know when we're paying extra. And they are excellent at communicating about this.

Working with the people.

One of our biggest concerns, of course, was the language and culture issue. A few notes.

First, Zenith allows their technicians to use their real names. There are no technicians in India named Jeff or Stan.

Second, we deal with our primary contact in the U.S. for almost everything. From time to time we work with technicians in India directly. We have been very pleased with this.

Third, our clients only ever work with us. Our clients never interact with Zenith directly.

Communications has always been excellent, although a little patience and a sense of humor go a long way. Our favorite incident involved having Zenith do the first half of a job and then turn it back to us for the second half. The technician concluded his notes by writing: "Please do the needful thing." We knew exactly what he meant.

The Bottom Line is the Bottom Line

We have Zenith installed and monitoring almost every client server. We estimate they they provide about 50-75 hours of "billable" labor (meaning time on task), which translates into about 75-100 hours we would have to pay a technician each month.

That's a half-time technician.

Next up: I'll give a few thoughts on Zenith vs. Kaseya and Zenith vs. Microsoft.

Tuesday, December 04, 2007

After being head-down working on web sites and back-end processes, I'm coming up for air.

I have a vision of the future. It involves you.

Here's the multi-step process:

1) We have launched a new web site called www.SMBBooks.com. It's just a baby right now, but we have plans to grow very soon.

2) SMB Books will sells books and a lot more. Audio CDs, white papers, and whatever we can find that's interesting and useful to the SMB Consulting Community.

3) SMB Books will sell everything at 10% off (or better) every day. So that $60 book will cost you no more the $54.

4) You can earn money by joining our affiliate program. Put our link on your site. When visitors click from you to us, you will earn 10% of what they spend. Compare that to just about any book-related affiliate program! For more information, see our sister-site at www.smb-books.com.

5) We are soliciting White Papers and other materials that may be of interest to the wider SMB Consulting community. A white paper is a short (15-25 pages, generally) paper that explores a specific topic. It might be a how-to on a certain technology, a best practice recommendation, or whatever you think may be useful to the community. White papers don't sell for much, but they can help you make a little money while helping your fellow SBSers.

Third, if you have a white paper, or some other product that is useful to the SMB community, please contact me through the www.smb-books.com web site.

Our long term plan is to expand our offerings, focus very clearly on the SMB Consulting space, and to become a real resource for the community. With audio programs and white papers, I think we can really build a resource for the entire SMB Consulting community.

My favorite political philosopher is James Madison. In addition to being a U.S. President, Madison is known as the "Father of the [U.S.] Constitution." His most famous writings are in The Federalist Papers, a series of articles written in support of the proposed constitution while it was being debated in the states.

And perhaps the greatest Federalist Papers are #10 and #51, a discussion of "factions." Factions are groups who act in their own best interest, often without regard to the interests of the community as a whole.

The basic gist is this:

- Selfish factions can destroy a community (from small communities to great nations).

- Protection from these factions comes in one of two forms.

1) Prevent the factions from meeting. Thus they cannot implement their plans. This is not a practical answer in a free society.

2) Create so many factions that no one faction can win all the time. Thus groups need to compromise in order to win, and different coalitions win each time.

In 1787, this philosophy resulted in a complex governing system in which many, many groups were represented in government.

Here are a few thoughts on the modern view of Madison's philosophy.

First, The Internet is the most democratizing power in the modern era. The two greatest democratizing forces have always been capitalism (trade) and communications. When people trade with one another, they manage to overcome their differences and learn to compromise.

Communications has been a tool that has divided the classes for all of human history. The printing press coincided with major advances in democracy. And with each new medium -- telegraph, telephone, radio, television, the Internet -- communication became easier.

The easier, cheaper, and more universal communication is, the more it supports a widening democracy. You can see, therefore, how the Internet has become the "ultimate" tool for increasing equalities among people.

And what's the connection?

It's simple, really. People want to communicate with others who have similar interests. With the internet, we can easily and quickly create communities to discuss politics, our ailments, our hobbies. No matter what groups you find yourself in, you'll find a friend on the internet.

Just look at all the "Other Links" sections on all the blogs and web sites you frequent. Even within one primary community, we have plenty of sub-communities that connect us to whole other worlds on the Internet.

So, to Madison's first option, the modern world has given a definitive answer. You can never stop people from finding other people who have the same interests. In fact, we are experiencing an explosion of tools that allow us to find each other.

But Madison's second option is even more powerful today than ever before. The communication explosion has brought out every group imaginable. In an absolute sense, there are groups communicating today on the Internet that could never have found each other ever before in human history.

The result: a massive increase in the number of groups working to be heard. At the local, national, and international level. They're organizing into small groups, coalitions of groups, and large groups. They're holding conferences, feeling their power, and finding ways to make a difference and get their share.

And set aside some quiet time to think about this: What are your "connected" clients up to? Are they involved in a similar expansion of groups within their own business community? Are they more and more connected every week into a growing community? If so, how will this affect their business and yours?

Monday, December 03, 2007

One of my favorite "philosophers" of business is Coleman Cox. If you look at almost any collection of quotes, you'll find quotes by Coleman Cox, generally about sales and business.

Most people like to quote his one-and two-line quips. Here's a great longer quote from Just Plain Talk:

When a man is "all run down" and needs building up he calls in a doctor for advice, and medicine that will put him right. He does not dispute the doctor's diagnosis of his case, or rewrite the prescription to suit himself. How different it is when his buisness is "run down" and needs building up. He calls in an advertising man whose business is to stimulate, and build up a run down business. He rewrites the advertising man's "prescriptions" as fast as they are handed to him, changes the size of doses and time of giving to suit himself, and then puts all the blame on the advertising man if the business does not show immediate improvement. Yes, the advertising business is the only business in the world every man "knows"--or thinks he knows.

Isn't it true? You can buy books by Erick Simpson and Matt Makowicz, or a program from Robin Robins. But what do you do?

You start by putting on your "Let's do it my way" filter.

You are seeking advice because your way needs improvement. So why are you stripping out bits and pieces of their advice so that the action plan looks more like what you've already been doing?

Reason One: You're most comfortable with what you've done in the past. True. But that got you here and you want to move on. Doing more of the same is going to get you more of the same.

Reason Three: It costs too much money. Finding the right list costs money. Doing a mailing of 3-4 pages and repeating it 3-4 times costs money. It can costs a couple thousand dollars. What if you don't get any response?

Reality check: In order to save money and play it safe, you are very tempted to go cheap on the list, do a 1-2 page letter, and only repeat it once. What have you done? You've mailed to the wrong people with a watered down message, and you haven't reinforced it.

But at least you get to blame your advisors! After all, "their" program didn't work.

Sunday, December 02, 2007

My dear sainted mother used to use the word "futz" a lot. Here are a few uses for the word:

- Quit futzing around.- Don't futz with that.

To futz is to play with something or meddle with it when you should be leaving it alone. For example, when you're making something, there comes a time when you glue it in place and then you have to just sit and wait.

If you futz with it, for example by moving a part to see if the glue is dry, you're likely to reduce the quality of the final product. It's not that you will ruin the craft, but maybe that one piece will just never go back to exactly where it was supposed to be.

Another example is when you plant seeds. You wait and wait, but no plant appears. When one day there's a little crack in the soil, you want to chip it out to help the plant break through. That's futzing. The plant will be just fine without your futzing.

We futz because we're eager to see the fruits of our labor. We've put something together and we want to see if it works the way it's supposed to.

Very often, we futz too much with our businesses. We put a new process in place -- maybe HaaS or managed services. That's a big, major change.

Once you make a change like that, it is very tempting to futz with it.

In other words, you don't give the new program a chance before you start making little changes here and there. You find yourself constantly checking up on it. Playing a little here, playing a little there.

Stop futzing.

If you've thought through your plan, you have a good plan, and it's all in place, then leave it alone for awhile. Let the plan work. Take notes, collect them, and do some revisions after a period of time.

In the meantime, put all that excitement and nervous energy into the next project.

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FTC Disclosure Statement

I make every attempt to honestly state what I believe and enjoy the freedom of posting whatever I feel like on this blog. This is a big complicated world and I have many interconnected personal and professional relationships.

I may in some way receive money or other benefits from any of the products, services, or companies mentioned in this blog as a direct or indirect result of my actions on and off this blog. Any experience mentioned here is just my experience and I have no knowledge about whether it represents a typical experience with any products, services, or companies mentioned.

Whenever it is possible to have both an honest and a misleading interpretation of my statements, please assume honesty. Thanks. - karlp